Realize
by insomniaddict24601
Summary: "You never realize death until you realize love"  Katharine Butler Hathaway
1. The Prophesy

Death doesn't bother me. I know that may sound really great to most people, but I feel like it should scare me. A little bit, at least. I don't care if I die. I don't care if someone else dies. I don't care if I'm the reason someone else dies. And I'm not the least bit bothered by any of that. I feel like my ability to witness and inflict this kind of thing without feeling bad _should _scare me. But it never has. Pain doesn't bother me either. Most people are afraid of pain. I'm not afraid of things like pain and death because I figure they'll happen in time, so why not confront them now? The sooner the better.

The thing I do fear is uncertainty. Most people would argue that death is uncertain and therefore I really _do _fear death, but I think it is one of the most certain things we know. It's inevitable. It happens to every living thing eventually. There's no escaping it. It's never easy. For anyone. And after death, that's it. No more. The end. It doesn't get more certain than that. If you ask me, death's reliable. It's life that is uncertain. Life that throws the twists and turns in our path. Life that has a charming way of fucking it all up. When things are out of our hands (and they always are) we shrug, say 'that's just life', and move on, not knowing what's around the bend. But somewhere at the end of this messed up, twisting, turning road, Thanatos waits for you. Maybe he's a mile away, maybe three feet, but one things for sure: all you are is just another name to check off of his infinite list.

_Child of below beware_

_Love is a dangerous affair_

_With Eros' bow you'll soon be strangled_

_But Suicide can be your angel_

_The heir of Hades turns divine_

_As a violent death becomes benign_

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><p><strong>So what do you think? This entire story is in Nico's POV, including the passage above (excluding the prophesy, of course) <strong>

**Any guesses on what my prophesy means? Drop me a review. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!**

**EXCEPT YOU, SUSIE, BECAUSE YOU ALREADY KNOW SO DON'T SPOIL IT!**

**Oh, and don't worry. Chaps will be longer in the future. **

**This was just a Prologue type-thing**


	2. Chapter 1

For those of you who don't know, the Hades's cabin is made of obsidian. Perhaps you also weren't aware that obsidian is black. And if you're really dull, then it might take you a moment or two to realize that a black room is very difficult to light. So I spend most of my time near the front window. You know, where I'm actually able to see my hand in front of my face.

I was looking out the window when I saw her. I was also looking out the window when no one else saw her. It was bizarre, really. She didn't blend in. No orange CHB t-shirt. Deathly pale. So thin that I could almost see her bones from 30 feet away through the glass. But no one saw her but me. No one bothered to move out of her way, and she didn't change her course. She just walked right through them. Yeah, you heard me. Through. Like she was made of air. The demigods she passed through changed. Just for a moment, their eyes darkened. Their actions slowed. They looked drained and broken. Falling apart. It wasn't something I had seen since arriving back from the battle of Manhattan. But as soon as she had materialized on the other side of them, they went back to fighting, as violently motivated as they had been moments before.

The strange girl sensed my gaze and turned, meeting my eye across the distance. She looked desperate. Pleading.

I don't know why I chose to do it. Impulse? Obligation? Fate? I stood up and ran out the door, leaving my shoes forgotten on the doorstep. As I ran down the steps, there was this feeling, this tug from inside of me. No, I don't mean my heart was drawn to her or any of that sappy romantic crap, but there was definitely something about her that I felt connected to. Like it was my duty to follow this mysterious girl through the camp, or terrible things would happen at my expense. I could see her figure receding down the cabin row. Something was pulling me towards her, pushing me to race through the groups of gossiping half-bloods, ignoring their angry shouts and the pain of running barefoot. Whatever the Hades I was doing, it was more important than anything I could understand at the time.

She was standing in the steel doorframe of the Hephaestus cabin with a pained look on her ashen face. I stopped myself on the porch railing and walked into the cabin completely winded with no clue as to why I had just ran there. It was about to be made clear.

On the bottom bunk in the corner, a horrified Leo Valdez was sitting cross-legged with a gun in his hand and tears staining his face. The noise around me faded and all I could hear was the panicked sound of my own heart beating. My eyes locked on that gun. Gun. Leo. Leo. Tears. Tears. Gun. Holy. Shit.

But I took a deep breath and stood my ground.

Leo shut his mouth, which had fallen open when I ran in, and set the gun down on the sheets in front of him, like it was a bomb that could go off at any second. His terrified eyes never left mine. I forgot about the mysterious girl in the doorway and sat down next to Leo, warily moving the gun to the top of his dresser. Neither one of us spoke. Had I really just walked in on what I thought I had? If I had arrived any later than-

"I'm sorry." Leo said, but his voice wavered. I swallowed, not really having anything to say. So I said the one thing that was on my mind.

"Why?"

Leo took a deep breath, leaning his head back on the wall. His fingers twitched, looking for something to tinker. Nervous habit, I suppose. It took him a moment to respond.

"I don't even know where to start." he shrugged, but his voice cracked at the end. I saw the tears welling up in his eyes, threatening to spill over once again. And once again, I didn't know how to reply, so I searched my brain and found a common response to a common phrase.

"Try the beginning." That got a smile out of him, thank the gods. He sat up straighter and raked his shaky hands through his hair.

"When I was younger, Hera- Gods, how am I supposed to say this? She was my tia. She did all these horrible things to me. She put me down for a nap in the fireplace. Got me mad enough that my handprints are burnt into a picnic table hundreds of miles from here. So my family thinks I'm insane. The devil, or something. And when I ended up killing my mom (unintentionally of course, blame Gaea) they refused to take me in, so foster care it was. Then I was a total idiot in the school system and they ended up sending me to wilderness camp, which really wasn't so bad, except turns out it was all the mist. I was just dreaming. The best part of my life never even happened. So it's not like I'm even friends with Jason and Piper. I can tell they're trying to act like they are just for the sake of preserving what we all remember, but now I'm a total third wheel. And then I get to camp and I feel like I'm finally where I should be. Like all the shit I had to go through was leading up to the moment that I walked through these magical borders. Or crashed into Long Island Sound, if you want to look at it in a literal sense. And then there's all this fire crap and the Argo II and I think I'm in love with my sister **(for details see my story _Bending the Rules_ located on my profile)**."

There was no way I could possibly provide the perfect response to this. Leo had every right to be fed up with life. I just had to convince him otherwise. Piece of cake, right? Yeah, no, not really. Not at all. I wanted so badly to just stick my tail between my legs and run away, claiming that I saw and heard nothing when the gunshot rang out over the camp. But my life's not easy either. So I tried to untangle the words in my brain and started to say something, planning to wing it and hoping to gods not to blow it.

"Holy shit, man." I started. Yup. Now let the winging begin. "I-I don't even know what to say. Your life sucks. Yeah. But you have the entire camp and every god on Olympus backing you. You have no idea how many people support you. Trust me. Leo, you're right, you know. You belong here. Everything in your life led up to this place and this quest. You can't just walk away from it all. This is what you are meant to do. This is why you are a fire-user. You're going to do great things, okay? So don't you dare throw it all away." That's when I saw something ignite in his eyes. Maybe it was a fire-user thing, but that familiar spark that we had all begun to miss over the past few days was back, and so was Leo. It would take some coaxing to turn that spark into a blaze again, but I had nothing but time.

I spent four hours sitting on his bunk, listening to his story, talking him down. He eventually let me take the gun back to the forges. I made him promise to talk to me next time, right after I made him promise not to let there _be _a next time.

On my way out, I walked right into the girl who had lead me to cabin 9 in the first place. She smiled, revealing two tiny blades like the tip of a knife that protruded over her chapped bottom lip just a little. When her small smile stretched, the fangs pierced into her lip, which was covered in scars, old and new, and golden ichor beaded up around the fresh wounds. The girl didn't seem to mind. I was so fascinated with watching that drop of gold fall slowly down to her chin, and trying to figure out why I actually ran into her as opposed to through her, like every other camper I had seen, that I nearly missed it when she spoke.

"Thank you." she whispered, and then she was gone, leaving me standing on the porch of cabin 9, feeling like I had just met the love of my life. And I hadn't even caught her name.

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><p><strong>Please send me a review? I'd really appreciate it!<strong>

**Review prompt: Who do you think this mysterious girl is? Why can things pass through her? Why does she bleed golden ichor? And what connection does she have to Leo's action? DUN DUN DUN! Or you could just, you know, tell me whether or not you liked it...**


	3. Chapter 2

**A word of warning so that you don't end up entirely misunderstanding this chapter. I was in an insanely sarcastic mood plus I have an odd, masochistic sense of humor. So to clear up any confusion: the conversation between Percy and Nico is purely two best friends teasing each other. No part of it is them being serious. Except for the first line, obviously. Percy clearly wanted Nico to get down. Everything else is just two friends joking around. Oh yeah, and I don't own PJO. Forgot about the whole point of the disclaimer, didn't you, Alex? Fail. **

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><p>~November, 2015~<p>

There's nothing more beautiful than watching the sun rise over the tarnished, thrashed, and mangled rooftops of Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Preferably that one street in the Polish district that's especially trashy. You know, the one where you go to meet that hooker you like every few weeks or the street on which that guy who sells you your monthly stash of meth always happens to be hanging out in his creepy black hoodie.

Sure, it may be the perfect place to watch the sunrise alongside your sinful, Greenpoint counterparts, but it loses a lot of the serenity if you are being chased down the very same street with a bullet currently lodged in your calf and an angry psychopath in hot pursuit. Definitely not the best way to start your morning. So here I am, limping down one of the shadiest dark alleys known to man, near blinded by the searing pain in my leg, and full out of any nectar or ambrosia, let alone the time to eat it before I'm shot into a million pieces by the guy behind me.

In other words, I'm screwed.

Typical day for me.

"Get down!" yells a familiar voice ahead of me. I figure I've got nothing to lose, so I give in to the pain and stumble to my knees and elbows onto the concrete, slick with last night's rain. I don't have the strength to look up, but I'm pretty sure I know who my (oh gods I was not about to call him my rescuer. No. Let's see...how to phrase this...oh, okay, got it) but I'm pretty sure I know who my inconveniently late backup was. There we go. Perfect.

"'bout fricking time, Percy." I manage to gasp through the pain, fighting the urge to either vomit or pass out. My eyes began to focus and I saw his tattered converse in front of my face (which was resting quite comfortably on the concrete, thank you very much). The tip of his sword was hanging near his heel, the hilt grasped tight in his right hand, still in the correct finger placement for running someone through in an instant. Once a swordsman, always a swordsman.

"Oh, give me a break, Nico. I'm here _now _and you're not dead _yet_, so I didn't do that bad. Plus I killed him. I mean that's gotta count for something." I laughed, though it was painful, doing my best to take in the heap of a body that had once been firing at me, now lying disfigured in a puddle of blood that was growing wider by the minute. I coughed a couple of times and sat up, although every ounce of me wanted to just fall asleep where I was.

"So, you gonna let me bleed out here or what?" I asked, honestly curious. I had stopped caring whether I lived or died years ago. Death and I, we have this sort of mutual respect for each other. It's weird, but it works. I mean, he's friends with my dad, so...

"Yeah. I am." Percy replied simply. His sarcasm has been getting a lot better. I swear, I wasn't sure if he was serious or not. The things that guy can say with a straight face kind of scare me. "Nah, I'm totally kidding. Can you walk?" he asked. I tired to chuckle but it came out as more of a grunt plus a big puff of air.

"There's a fucking hole blown through my leg. Do you _think _I can walk?" I asked, gesturing to the bloody shredded skin that was visible through my black skinny jeans. Percy laughed and bent down, capping riptide and slipping one arm under mine so that I could pull myself up and stumble around without putting too much pressure on my leg.

"Okay. I get it. You're grumpy when you're in pain. I guess we all get that way sometimes." Percy said.

"You're a frickin jackass. Just get me in the van!"

"Nico, you really need to watch your mouth. It's not good to swear." he scolded, opening the sliding door on the side of the van and pretty much flopping me down on the floor.

"I just got shot in the leg and then had to run three blocks! Certain rules of conduct are waived at this point." I complained.

"True, true, but I'm just a little bit bothered by your negative attitude. Sure you were shot in the leg, but you shouldn't have to make everyone feel just as bad by being such a pessimist. At least he didn't shoot you in the head! See? Now everything's okay and we're happy again."

"You know what? I wish he _had _shot me in the head. Then I wouldn't be lying in the back of a van listening to you try to lecture me about my outlook on life for the umpteenth time. I swear. We have this argument so often that I can recite every single fucking line. See what I did there? I swore. Just to piss you off."

"Watch it, buddy. I'm the one driving you to the hospital. Don't make me make a wrong turn and dump you entirely by accident into the ocean."

"You would, wouldn't you."

"Yup. Now, shut up."

The drive to the hospital was pretty much silent, but then again, I wouldn't have noticed if a monkey had been screaming and playing the cymbal right by my ear. All I could focus on was the pain and the blood that was seeping into the fabric of my jeans. I had given up putting pressure on it. All that did was make it bleed more. I fought another wave of nassau and tilted my head back, lying completely flat on the floor of the van.

I have no idea how long I was lying there, but the next thing I remember, Percy was sliding the door open and dragging me out into the unwelcome sunlight and the noise of people. He dumped me on the curb, this inert, bloody mess of teenager, slammed the car door closed behind him, and sped away. It took a while for anyone to do something about the bloody mess. But trust me, they saw this everyday. This is Brooklyn, people. A day in the ER is not complete without the lonely gang member in need of a good Samaritan to help him cross the final 50 feet or so into the emergency room.

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><p><strong>The next chapter will carry on right after this so don't worry. This scene wasn't <em>entirely <em>random and pointless. **

**Review prompt: What do you think of Percy and Nico being friends? I know they weren't very close in the series, but I feel like they could have been if they wanted to. And now that Grover has, let's face it, become a very minor character, the best friend role needed to be filled. And, no, Annabeth. Girlfriends do not count. **


	4. Chapter 3

**OMG I'M SO SORRY I HAVEN'T UPDATED IN SO LONG! DON'T LOOK AT ME! I'M ASHAMED. **

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><p>If you've ever woken up in a hospital bed, then you know how terribly disorienting it can be.<p>

Everything was white. White sheets, white blanket, white hospital gown, white walls, white ceiling, white linoleum, white door. It was disgusting. I can only imagine how out of place I must have looked in that bed. The only white on me are the whites of my eyes.

I ignored the throbbing pain in my head and kicked the sheets off with my good leg, examining my bandaged right calf. Not bad, really. Better than I had expected. At least I still had a leg. What was I saying? I sounded like Percy! I had a gunshot wound in my leg! I wasn't going to be able to walk for weeks! I'd be a limping target for monsters.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone yelling from the room down the hall. It sounded like a woman. She was crying for help.

I started to get up, but stopped as soon as I felt the pain shoot up into my knee. The bandage refused to let my leg bend enough to get out of bed. A man rushed by my room clad in light green scrubs with a mask over his mouth. A team of nurses that looked like they belonged in a, well, not a hospital, that's for sure, followed behind him, wheeling a hospital bed and shouting orders. I sat up enough to look through the chicken wired glass windowpane in the corner of the door, but nothing I saw told me what the hell was going on outside.

And then the world stopped.

Okay, so maybe not, but it felt like it to me.

She was walking in the opposite direction as the doctors. Not really walking, though. More like ambling. Strolling. I don't know. She looked upset. I made a snap decision and leaned over the bedside table, grabbed the crutches, and hoisted myself up off the bed, ignoring the blinding pain. Thankfully, the door didn't have a doorknob. All I had to do was push through it. I guess that made it easier for doctors to get in and out quickly. Whatever. I was out of my hospital room in less than a minute (which for someone who just woke up with a bandaged leg, is pretty decent).

She was nearing the end of the hallway and the door that led to the parking lot. There was no way for me to catch up with her. I had never used crutches in my life. It was all I could do not to topple over.

"Wait! Hold on!" I called out. The girl froze and turned towards me.

It had been a while since our first encounter at Camp Half-Blood, but I hadn't forgotten about her. I had vowed that if I ever was to see her again, I wouldn't let her get away. She looked puzzled at the confrontation, glancing behind her to see if I was talking to someone else. When she saw no one, she turned to me with a somewhat horrified expression and started walking towards me.

"You can see me?" she asked in a loud whisper.

"Why wouldn't I be able to?" I managed to ask, tearing my gaze from her bloodshot eyes and the stain of golden ichor on her lips.

"Because I'm not a..." She paused and I saw the realization dawn on her face. Her eyes widened, revealing pale blue irises, framed almost too perfectly by a thick layer of black eyeliner. "Wait a second, you're that guy from camp, right?"

"Uh, yeah. You showed me where Leo was so that he wouldn't, uh, yeah." I confirmed, not really wanting to think about that day. It's not something Leo or I ever mention. I could see that she knew how I felt when her features softened and she gave me a small, sad smile.

With the light streaming through the window behind me, I saw the tips of her razor blade fangs poking out from underneath her top lip, glinting in the sun. Just like I remembered. Still slightly tainted a golden color from all of the ichor in her mouth. She opened her mouth, tearing my eyes away from her haunting beauty.

"Thanks again. For talking to him. Doesn't happen often enough, if you ask me. My schedule's pretty tight these days. I have to take calls all over the country. It's really sad." I had no idea what she was talking about, but I nodded, giving my sympathy and trying my best not to look totally confused.

"Yeah. Okay. I'm Nico, by the way." I extended my hand and she took it. Only then did I notice her finger nails. They were probably supposed to be talons. They resembled her teeth, just filed down so that they weren't razor sharp.

"Nice to meet you, Nico. I'm Suicide." she smiled, shaking my hand.

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><p><strong>So...anyone want to take a shot at explaining this character? Besides Susie who already knows? Because I think it's kinda cool :D<strong>


	5. Chapter 4

**Sorry this took forever :P My lame-ass excuse is at the bottom but you actually have to at least TRY to read the chapter that's sandwiched between my author notes.**

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><p><em>"Nice to meet you, Nico. I'm Suicide." she smiled, shaking my hand.<em>

My hand went limp in her grasp and I gave her a bewildered look.

"You're...what?"

She laughed. I couldn't hide my smile when she did. Her laugh was like a breath of fresh air. Literally. It sounded like roses and sea spray. Yeah, that's right. I, Nico DiAngelo, have a sappy side. But I'm not lying. She had the laugh of a goddess. And that's when it started to make sense. A goddess. Of course. Why hadn't I seen it before? But who?

"You've heard of Thanatos, right?" she asked, interrupting my thoughts.

"Of course."

"Have you heard of the Keres?" That name didn't even sound familiar. I shrugged and shook my head. She cracked a small smile, careful not to let her fangs dig into her lip. "Well, me and my nine sisters make up the Keres. The spirits of violent death. We're the lesser known siblings of Thanatos," she explained. I blinked a few times and tried to make sense of it all. She was...a spirit. Of violent death. She said she was Suicide. The spirit of suicide? That's a depressing title.

"So, you really are suicide? Like, the thing?" I asked. She shrugged, looking down at her tattered converse and leaning against the wall.

"You could say that. Most refer to me as Aftoktonia. It's what I was originally called in he days of the Greeks. My sisters just call me Toni."

"Aftotok...I'll stick to Toni."

She laughed again, unable to contain her smile this time. I winced as I watched her fangs puncture old wounds on her lips.

"Doesn't that hurt? When you smile?"

"There are worse things. Trust me. And after billions of years, I really don't mind it." she shrugged, laughing a little. I took a deep breath, held it, then let it go, sorting out the words in my head.

"Do you, uh, want to go outside or something? Unless you have to be somewhere. In that case-" It's a good thing she interrupted me before I faltered anymore.

"No that's fine. I need some air, after what happened back there with that girl. I see it everyday but it's not something I never got used to." she said, turning towards the door to the parking lot.

"I can imagine..." Toni raised her eyebrows and I quickly back-pedaled, realizing the weight of my claim. "Okay, well maybe I can't. But it's got to really suck." Her face relaxed and she rolled her eyes, smirking, which cut her lips further. Not too bad. Just like little pinpricks, but that didn't keep me from wincing when the liquid gold pooled around her fangs.

"You don't know the half of it. So, where were you going? Are you just going to ditch the hospital or do you plan on going back to your room?" she asked, her blunt talons glinting in the light of the setting sun streaming through the window as she rested her hand on the doorknob.

"Nah, I was just going to walk home or something." I shrugged, realizing that I didn't have a ride back to the apartment that Percy and I shared. If I was right about the date, assuming I hadn't been comatose for a month, he was working today and wouldn't be able to give me a ride until tomorrow. Toni looked doubtful.

"With crutches? That don't even fit you?"

"I...guess."

She crossed her arms in front of her chest and cocked her hip in a rather intimidating posture, then asked, "Should I get a taxi?"

"...yeah."

"That's what I thought. Come on." She pushed the door open and held it as I hobbled out, leaning mostly on my good leg.

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><p>"Wait, you said I was the only one who could see you...so do mortals just think I'm some insane guy talking to empty space?" I asked once we had left the parking lot and were walking down the sidewalk (Well, she was walking. I was just hopping and dragging my bad leg).<p>

She laughed. "No, they can see me. I'm not on call right now. Think of it like this: When someone's about to commit suicide, I go on call by entering this sort of alternate world. It's kind of like a window. I can see the mortal world, but I'm in the underworld. That's why mortals don't see me when I'm on call. Technically, I'm no longer on earth. But since you spend so much time in the underworld, you're able to see through that window. Even most demigods can't do that. But when my duty is over, at least for the time being, I can go back through the window and join the mortal world again. I actually live here. Not in the underworld. It's one of the benefits of being a spirit. You aren't as powerful as the gods or other celestial beings so you can settle down pretty much anywhere without drawing too much attention to yourself."

"That's kind of cool. Do you live here in Brooklyn or closer to LA?" I asked.

"Ugh. No, I live here. I try to put as much distance between myself and the underworld as physically possible. I get enough of it while I'm on call." she explained, making no effort to hide the fact that she detested anything having to do with the underworld. I just hoped I didn't fall under the same category.

"Really? I kind of like it there." I said, trying to be honest without getting on her bad side. "Have you ever visited The Fields of Asphodel?" I asked.

"Not since I moved out, and that was literally eons ago, but I remember it."

"That's where I spend most of my time. I kind of like it there. But I agree with you. The rest of my dad's kingdom is...unpleasant."

"Unpleasant is one word. Maybe...grotesque or mournful? It feels more like a giant morgue for the living dead if you ask me. And technically, that's what it is. Why do you like Asphodel so much?" she asked, sounding genuinely curious. I sighed and stopped walking because my leg was killing me. She stopped and turned to face me, awaiting my answer.

"Everyone there is so empty. They have no identity, thanks to the river Lethe, but they remember me since they only drink from the river once and I meet them after they've done it. So I have an entire field of people who know my name because I live with them for part of the year. It's like a giant family. Which rocks since my actual family is either dead or some sort of immortal authoritarian." I said, referring to Hades, of course.

Toni nodded and I was worried that I said too much. I glanced down at the bandage around my leg, realizing for the first time that I had never changed out of my hospital gown. The breeze was blowing through the slit in the back and sending chills down my spine.

"Come on, Nico." she said softly, beckoning toward the taxi that had just pulled up to the curb.

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><p><strong>I can't even BEGIN to express how much I hate this chapter. It seriously took me three and a half months to write because I kept coming back to it and getting frustrated by the way it was turning out. So I finally forced myself to finish it and publish the s. o. b. so you could read it and stuff. Thanks for forcing me out of my Writer's Block! Love you guys :D<strong>


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